A picture-book biography of the inventor of dynamite and creator of the Nobel Prizes fills a niche but oversimplifies somewhat in so doing. From his discovery that the volatility of nitroglycerin might be harnessed for use to the reading of the will in which he established the famous prizes, the brief account sketches in the basic details of Nobel’s adult life: his fondness for reading and writing, his tinkering with explosives, the factory blast that killed his brother Emil and four others and the premature obituary he read when his brother Ludvig’s death was misreported as his own. Throughout, Wargin depicts a melancholy but committed pacifist who hoped “his inventions would prevent war.” Pullen’s full-bleed paintings are at their best in Nobel’s workshop, their subject intent on the chemical task at hand. While the brevity of the narrative is appropriate for the audience, for whom little else on the subject is available, it glosses over the fact that he manufactured armaments as well as tools for mining and manufacturing—an unfortunate elision. (list of Nobel Peace Prize winners) (Picture book/biography. 6-9)
Pub Date: Feb. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-58536-281-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2009
An earnest but energetic tribute to diversity, done up with postmodern arrays of smiling, stylized, lozenge-headed children paired to a rollicking celebration of: “Your coffee and cream skin, / your warm cocoa dream skin . . . / Your chocolate chip, double dip sundae supreme skin! / Your marshmallow treat skin, / your spun sugar sweet skin . . . / your cherry topped, candy dropped, frosting complete skin.” Tyler also urges readers to think about the commonality of “The skin that you laugh in; / the skin that you cry in; / the skin that you look to / the sky and ask, ‘Why?’ in.” Though he changes his tone and plies a verbal mallet to drive his point home in the last several verses, the earlier wordplay more than compensates—while glimpses of one child in a wheelchair, and another held by a biracial couple, expand the general theme to encompass more than skin color alone. A sonically playful, if just a bit overlong, alternative to Sheila Hamanaka’s All the Colors of the Earth (1994). (Picture book. 6-9)
Pub Date: April 1, 2005
ISBN: 0-9759580-0-3
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Chicago Children’s Museum/IPG
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2005
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
The story feels a bit contrived, but Ada will be a welcome addition to the small circle of science-loving girls in the...
Using science and technology, third-grader Ada Lace kicks off her new series by solving a mystery even with her leg in a cast.
Temporarily housebound after a badly executed bungee jump, Ada uses binoculars to document the ecosystem of her new neighborhood in San Francisco. She records her observations in a field journal, a project that intrigues new friend Nina, who lives nearby. When they see that Ms. Reed’s dog, Marguerite, is missing, they leap to the conclusion that it has been stolen. Nina does the legwork and Ada provides the technology for their search for the dognapper. Story-crafting takes a back seat to scene-setting in this series kickoff that introduces the major players. As part of the series formula, science topics and gadgetry are integrated into the stories and further explained in a “Behind the Science” afterword. This installment incorporates drones, a wireless camera, gecko gloves, and the Turing test as well as the concept of an ecosystem. There are no ethnic indicators in the text, but the illustrations reveal that Ada, her family, and bratty neighbor Milton are white; Nina appears to be Southeast Asian; and Mr. Peebles, an inventor who lives nearby, is black.
The story feels a bit contrived, but Ada will be a welcome addition to the small circle of science-loving girls in the chapter-book world. (Fiction. 7-9)Pub Date: Aug. 29, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4814-8599-9
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2017
BOOK REVIEW
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